Working for GLD

There are 4 categories of positions that we typically recruit:

  • qualified lawyers
  • legal trainees
  • specialists from professions such as finance, HR, communications, law, project management, governance, facilities management, ICT and records management
  • administrative staff

All vacancies are advertised on the Civil Service Job Search website.

If you are interested in applying for GLD qualified lawyers opportunities, you can also sign up to our mailing list.

The Government Legal Profession (GLP) publishes information for law or non-law graduates who wish to train as a solicitor or barrister as well as details about work experience opportunities.

Why lawyers should choose GLD

Few areas of legal practice offer the variety and intellectual challenge of work here at GLD.

In private practice, solicitors and barristers work for a range of clients. GLD lawyers work for just one client - the government of the day - which requires advice and support on a huge range of domestic and European affairs.

The government calls upon its lawyers to advise on any number of issues - complex, novel, politically sensitive and often in the public eye. GLD lawyers work not only with other lawyers but also as part of a wider team including policy makers and professionals from other specialist areas. They are involved in making the law as well as in interpreting it.

What GLD lawyers do

Our lawyers work across a variety of areas including:

  • Parliamentary and advisory work
  • litigation
  • commercial law
  • employment law
  • bona vacanita

Read more about what we do

Benefits

  • GLD offers a variety of flexible working patterns subject to business requirements which include working from home, compressed hours, part-time, flexi time and other alternative patterns eg term-time working. In addition we have generous policies for maternity and paternity leave, parental leave, and special leave in the event of domestic emergencies

  • We offer a generous annual leave allowance of 25 days per year that increases to 30 days after 5 years’ service. In addition we offer 9 days public and privilege days leave per year

  • We offer generous parental leave benefits including maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.

  • A comprehensive health and wellbeing service that includes a monthly private GP clinic, an annual flu jab programme, workplace assessments and adjustments to ensure a safe and healthy workplace, a biennial health screen programme, a confidential employee assistance service and reimbursement of eye-sight test fees

  • The majority of staff joining GLD are eligible for the civil service pension arrangements, a generous defined-benefits scheme with employer contributions. Full details of the different schemes including their benefits can be found here Former employees can find information about claiming their deferred pension benefits here

  • GLD has traditionally rewarded its highest performing staff with a one-off non-consolidated award on an annual basis. Additionally, an in-year special bonus scheme is in place to recognise individual and team achievements

  • Interest free season-ticket loan and a periodic tax efficient ‘cycle to work’ scheme

  • Civil Service Motoring Association membership costs £25 a year. For this you’ll get special rates for house and car insurance, a monthly magazine, a breakdown service and discounts for new cars and other benefits, including holidays www.boundless.co.uk

Learning and development in GLD

GLD is committed to supporting personal and career development, striving to provide access to relevant opportunities that suit the individual.

We encourage regular performance and development discussions to ensure that the individual receives the training and developmental learning that matters to them the most. We also operate a mentoring scheme and various career development programmes, including the opportunity through lateral development moves to move around the organisation to build skills and experience in different areas of law.

Both temporary and permanent members of staff have full access to our continuing professional development-accredited, free in-house training programme. This is developed by lawyers in GLD and the wider government legal community to provide both necessary and interesting training sessions and lectures, covering the full range of work carried out by the department and the government legal profession. We also work alongside Civil Service Learning to help our staff to make best use of their extensive learning offer, including in the support available to managers. This is all in support of our aims to provide unrivalled opportunities for interesting, varied, high-quality and challenging work and to support our people to fulfil their potential.

GLD uses the civil service competency framework for performance management, recruitment and development. Competencies are the skills, knowledge and behaviours that lead to successful performance and help performance management by describing what is required of people to do their jobs.

Our staff say GLD is a great place to work

Each year GLD participates in the civil service-wide people survey and this routinely confirms we are one of the highest scoring departments in terms of the overall engagement index when compared to other areas of the civil service. Senior managers take great care to ensure staff engagement is given a high priority throughout the year.

View our results from the civil service people survey

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